Cloaca

As the city and its appetites grow, so do the unfortunate end results.

For Romans relieving oneself was a communal activity. The seats in a public latrine could number as many as thirty built in a square formation. There was no segregation according to class either. If an aristocrat was caught short far from home and his body-slave had forgotten the chamber pot then he would sit alongside equestrian or plebeian in the same latrine. In any one of the 114 latrines found in Rome people would read, chat away and 'network' with each other. The poet Martial ridicules one man for hanging around in public toilets waiting for a dinner invitation! Continuing this sense of camaraderie the Romans also shared a communal sponge to clean up afterwards. The latrines were towards the bottom end of the extraordinary water system created by the Romans. After a latrine, water and its effluent contents went into the sewers.